Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus for rendering a plurality of objects by dividing the plurality of objects into a plurality of groups, and an image processing method.
Description of the Related Art
As a conventional rendering process, there is a speed-up technique for classifying objects included in image data into groups and performing a rendering process on each group. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2014-2591 discusses a technique for, if image data includes a large number of objects to be rendered and therefore is complex, performing a layer division rendering process for classifying a plurality of objects into a plurality of groups and performing a rendering process on a layer of each group. In the layer division rendering process, the rendering process is performed on each layer, whereby it is possible to reduce cache misses in a central processing unit (CPU) caused by the rendering process and reduce the processing time.
Objects used in a rendering process may be related to (have a dependent relationship with) each other. As an example, in a case where objects are subjected to a clip process, which is a clipping process by logical operations, these objects can be said to be related to (have a dependent relationship with) each other. Additionally, for example, also in a case where objects are subjected to a raster operation (ROP) process, these objects can be said to have a dependent relationship with each other. If the objects thus having a dependent relationship with each other are divided into different layers in the above layer division rendering process, processing cannot be completed in each layer, and an image of an erroneous rendering result may be output.